Internal Controls and Investigations

Summary

"Internal controls" are the measures an organization uses to manage risks and ensure that the organization's operations work as intended. They also help an organization (1) use and provide accurate and reliable information; (2) comply with laws, regulations, policies and procedures; (3) reduce the organization's exposure to waste, inefficiency, fraud and theft; and (4) monitor the performance of each business unit of the organization.

Internal controls are particularly important for public companies since the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act ("SOX") in 2002. SOX requires public companies to (1) establish and maintain adequate internal controls and procedures for financial reporting; and (2) assess the effectiveness of their internal controls in their annual reports.

Both preventive and detective controls are essential to an effective internal-control system. Preventive controls, such as separation of duties and proper authorizations, deter or prevent unwanted events from happening. Detective controls, such as inventories and audits, detect whether unwanted events have already occurred.

Internal controls may be designed to meet either general standards (which describe an organization's objectives) or specific standards (which describe how to achieve those objectives). For example, an organization may set a general standard of reasonable assurance of meeting its objectives, and it may set specific standards such as recordkeeping, authorization, separation of duties, supervision, or security of assets and records to provide the organization with reasonable assurance of meeting its objectives.

This multi-jurisdictional InfoPAK provides a Q&A guide to corporate crime, fraud and investigations. The Q&A gives a high level overview of matters relating to corporate fraud, bribery and corruption, ...

This InfoPAK guides the in-house practitioner on how to establish a corporate compliance and ethics program. It begins by outlining the primary corporate legal obligations and requirements, focusing ...

This InfoPAK provides corporate counsel with an overview of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines’ requirements for an effective ethics and compliance program and suggests useful strategies for the small ...

Jan 2013
QuickCounsel

While there is no "one-size-fits-all" compliance program for every organization, there are several core components that must exist to have an effective Program. This QuickCounsel covers those components.

Hear from ACC peers about the common negative perceptions about legal and compliance functions, and how they can impact program effectiveness. Learn what your peers are doing to dispel these misperceptions. ...

Discuss the remaining specific challenges facing the compliance officer today; understand how to research your industry's specific compliance needs; learn about some of the hottest compliance issues ...

Learn how to conduct a compliance investigation; understand the importance of having a formal investigations protocol in place; discuss the various roles in-house counsel may be called upon to play ...

A company’s board of directors is responsible
for investigating allegations of wrongdoing by officers and employees of the company. However, sometimes it is a board member who ends up in the investigatory ...

Guide to responding to allegations and government investigations. Provides links to research material, articles, and sample forms to assist the corporate counsel to respond to allegations and government
investigations.

This Profile explores the practices of six selected companies in their investigations using outside investigators, as well as examines one multinational law firm, in its role as an outside investigator ...

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